


A Hopeless Romantic With Very Bad Timing

by FBIEpidemic



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Anyways, Can you believe we missed this in Fallout, Ethan keeps trying to propose, Hurt Ethan, I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M, These men have the worst timing, Will hates his boyfriend, i love them anyways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 06:58:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16090418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FBIEpidemic/pseuds/FBIEpidemic
Summary: Ethan has the worst timing and is a gigantic idiot.AKA: Three times that Ethan while injured and one time that he did while healthy and got his yes





	A Hopeless Romantic With Very Bad Timing

Ethan Hunt is not a romantic. He’s just not good at it and when it comes to dating another MI agent who happens to overthink everything it’s not any easier.

“I don’t know how to ask him,” Ethan confides in Luther as the older man preps him for the mission. This time, it’s Ethan’s turn to seduce and he has a really bad feeling about it all. “I tie it to a string and he thinks it’s a bomb. I leave it in the house for him to find, he ignores it and thinks it’s just a hunk of junk.” 

He thought about having the ring put in Will’s food or wine at dinner but the other man is clutz and he would probably end up swallowing it. And the last thing Ethan wants is to kill his boyfriend.

“Spring it on him,” Luther tries. Luther is trying to strap Ethan into kevlar without it being noticeable and with Ethan going on and on about Will, it’s a little hard. However, Luther’s idea doesn’t seem to do the trick. 

Luckily, before Ethan can whine about how stupid and plain that idea is, Will, walks in.

“Luther, we gotta go.” Will motions the man out and smiles at Ethan, even giving him a wink,” good luck, babe.”

It’s the flutter of anxiety in Ethan’s chest that does him in.

His hands tremble like a Quarterback who sees the end of his career in the eyes of a defensive back. His nerve is paper thin and wax and wanes with each voice over the comms. He’s supposed to be the best agent that the IMF as ever hired. The best don’t get nervous, not like this.

“Ethan! Get down!”

He’s supposed to be in three places at once. Balancing the seduction of crooked CEO, keeping an eye on the keypad on the other side of the room, and running down possible codes. He’s distracted and this nasty woman’s lips biting and licking at his neck aren’t helping.

When he hears his voice over the line, he flinches and then he feels the searing wound at the side of his head. After that, nothing.

“Ethan!”

Will finds his limp body. The woman is gone, leaving nothing but the knife she left buried in Ethan’s chest and the bullet oozing blood down the side of Ethan’s head. For a moment, a desperate, hopeless moment, Will thinks this is it. He will have to watch Ethan’s last breathes come from a wheezing, pale, bleeding version of the man he loves. 

“Oh God,” he falls to his knee and collects Ethan in his arms. “Please,” he numbly runs a hand down Ethan’s body. The knots at his ribs and the hardness of muscle are nothing new. Will knows Ethan inside and out. It’s the sticky, hot blood that Will is unfamiliar with.

“Fuck,” the air rushes from his lungs and hot, thankful tears blur his vision. “He’s alive. Oh God, he’s alive.” Will does the only thing he knows to do, he holds Ethan’s body against his. “We need to abort. We need a hospital.”

He remains where he is with Ethan. He doesn’t move until Benji throws the door open and gawks at them. “Oh shit.” The younger man is stuck between going to Ethan’s side or providing a barrier that any attackers cannot get through. The last thing they need is more injuries.

“Luther,” Benji turn back to the door, peeking down the hallway and finding no one. “We need to move Ethan.”

The world seems to be moving in doubles. Everything that happens through Will’s earpiece and everything happens between each wheezing breath Ethan draws in.

“Will?” Lidded green eyes look up at Will. Pain and confusion cloud what little Will can see of Ethan’s eyes. The corners of his eyes are wet with unshed tears, pain that he can’t deny and upturns in the creases on his forehead. “-urts.” 

The boneless weight in Will’s arms doubles and panic stir in Will’s chest. So he does the only thing he can think of, he picks Ethan up.

“Move,” Ethan lay across Will’s arms limp. The authority in which Will demands Benji to move is enough to spur the other man into frantic action. 

“Luther, scratch that. We’re coming to you!”

Jane’s driving was frantic but not worse than Ethan’s is naturally. That’s all Will can think about as he cradles Ethan in his lap, slowly becoming soaked in his blood. He pushes Ethan’s hair from his face, a constant problem between the two of them. ‘

Ethan doesn't mind that his hair falls over his face, Will can’t stand it. But seating in the back seat hoping that a doctor can solve their latest problem, a haircut seems hardly worth a fight.

“Will!” The nurses take Ethan from his arms and begin to wheel him away. Jane’s grabs Will before he attempts to follow. It’s the only thing that stops him.

\-----------------------

Will has not moved from Ethan’s side. 

Half bald from the gunshot that grazed his head and still stunning and mysterious as he lays as pale as bedsheets. 

“Hey,” Will tries not to look as excited as he is. Ethan’s eyes still aren’t equally dilated and he looks bone dead tired but somehow he gives Will this silly smile and Will is put to ease.

“Will,” Ethan’s voice is no stronger than a whisper. He moves his hand, dragging it across the bed until he finds Will’s warmth with his fingertips. “You’re here.”

Will rolls his eyes, it’s the only thing he can do without crying. Even still, the movement causes the tears to hover dangerously at the sides of his eyes. “Of course I am, you idiot.” Will squeezes Ethan’s hand back, making up for the contact that Ethan’s mind is too scrambled to apply.

Ethan looks up at him with sleepy eyes, unfocused and rimmed with grey sleeplessness. “Kiss me.” His voice comes out husky from disuse and Will has never been more turned on but he pushes it down.

Will bends over Ethan as gently as he can and presses a light kiss to Ethan’s lips. That is until Ethan reaches up with determination and pulls him in deeper. “Marry me,” Ethan’s breath is hot on his face and he can feel the words coming off Ethan’s lips as neither of them breaks apart.

Will shakes his head,” get some rest, Ethan.” It’s not a no because he doesn’t want to say yes. It’s a no because when Ethan wakes up, he’ll regret asking. Will doesn’t want that kind of heartbreak right now.

“Sleep,” Will repeats, trying not to overthink the desperation he sees reborn in Ethan’s eyes. He presses a warm kiss to his temple, anyways. “I love you.”

Ethan is asleep again in moments.

When he wakes, he doesn’t recall popping the question. Will is grateful.

 

 

“Don’t.” 

Will clears the room. Checking and double checking everything around them before settling on Ethan. He repeats himself,” don’t.”

His hands are trembling. It’s the air, the cold that settles in your chest. The nerves and the adrenaline and the calm in Ethan’s eyes as he studies Will. It’s all just too much and frankly, people should not look as calm as Ethan does with a bomb strapped to his chest.

“I knew it would be you,” Ethan says, a ghost of a smile falling somewhere in his cheekbones, never meeting his mouth. It seems that emotions always miss Ethan’s mouth. Especially lately and Will wonders if he’s to blame. 

Their relationship only got off the ground because he kissed Ethan so, is this plateau in emotion because of him?

“Shut up.” He’s so damn mad though. It’s just like Ethan to use every other natural force to work out his problems rather than to just turn over in their bed and Will what’s wrong. No, fuck telling your boyfriend how you feel, get yourself kidnapped and strapped to a bomb!

Ethan watches him as he gets to his knees and looks the bomb over. 

Will has noticed his boyfriend’s natural curiosity, in a lot of way like a child. It’s this overthinking, this yearns to delve deep into the unknown that hurts Ethan the most. It plagues his dreams and leaves him uneasy. 

“Stop staring at me!” Will feels jumpy and agitated because he shouldn’t need to be doing this but because Ethan has to go and get himself-

“Will.”

The other man looks up and tries to remain mad at Ethan but those fucking green eyes are breaking his damn heart. “What?” 

The red clock is ticking on and Will really needs to focus on the timer that says they only have one minute.

Ethan doesn’t care. “I love you. You know that right?”

Will wants to bite back that sometimes it doesn’t really feel like it but that’s not fair. Even in their worst moments, he can see the love that Ethan holds for him. Even if it’s simply purchasing more blue suits because Will thinks it’s a good look or the tilt in his head when Will speaks. He always knows.

So he nods,” yeah.” He doesn’t meet Ethan’s eyes, instead focusing on those red numbers and the wires that crisscross on Ethan’s chest.

“Then leave.”

The honesty burns deep in Ethan’s voice and it startles Will. “No,” he glances up for only a moment before diving back into tracking wires.

“Will-”

He makes a noise, it’s shocking and happy because he knows what to do. “Ethan, I love you, but I need you to shut the hell up. Okay? Just shut up.” His hands are unsteady but he still holds the knife in his hand as sure as a surgeon going in for the cut.

When he cuts the wire, quickly moving to the next, he thinks about Ethan. The other man is the only reason he is able to keep a good mentality. 

“You did it.” Ethan’s face is a bruised mess, a cut lip that dances as he speaks and purple bruises that make his green steel eyes pop. “I-I… Damn.”

Will just looks at his hands and the wires. Looking back, he didn’t actually think this through very well. Ethan might be rubbing off on him.

“Marry me, Will?” Mischief shines in Ethan’s eyes but Will can’t think to look at him.

“Don’t. I’m so pissed at you right now… I might actually say no.” And with that Will leaves his boyfriend tied to the chair and walks to the door. He stands outside of it until Benji finds him, out of breath and terrified.

“Will! You took your comm out! We didn’t know if-”

“He’s in there. I don’t want to talk to him. I’m going to seat in the car.”

It also happens to be the day that Benji realized that love might just be overrated. 

 

 

“Marry me?” 

It’s been six years. A thousand nights spent sleeping next to hospital beds, stitching up wounds and tenderly kissing away the pain, countless fights, and the unmistakable feeling that this day would never come. 

He was caught off guard, too busy shoveling a pile of noodles into his mouth than to his boyfriend. “Of ‘uc’,” he mumbles around noodles and smiles goofily anyways.

Ethan watches Will’s face for any signs that he should back out of this. Then Will hits him with that stupid smile and Ethan has never been so sure about something in his entire life.

Benji watches them, eyes darting to Ethan’s kneeling figure and Will attempting quickly chew his noodles. 

For them, they faced a constant fear that something would happen and cause them to separate. It never came for them but it almost came from them. When Ethan broke his back on a mission that almost cost him his life, Will demanded he throws the towel in. Ethan was back at before the year ended. 

When Will was shot in the knee, Ethan retired. He wasn’t asked, he wasn’t even consulted. When Will woke up in the hospital and was told that he would never be able to work in the field again, Ethan kissed his head and said that they would make the best desk workers IMF has ever seen.

A year later, when a mass was found on Ethan’s lymph nodes Will retired completely. He needed to be there for Ethan. And although they stopped working together, it never stopped Benji and Jane from still being a part of their lives.

When Luther died a year ago, Jane came to them with the news. It was Will who rubbed Ethan’s back as he vomited and it was Ethan who sat numbly and held Will as he cried.

“Well?” Ethan shares a smile and feels a small bit of panic worm it’s way up his chest as Will stares at him.

“Of course, I will, you idiot.”


End file.
